Florida Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink announced that the Department of
Financial Services’ Bureau of Unclaimed Property has already returned more
unclaimed property to rightful owners in the last seven months than was
returned during all of the previous fiscal year, which ended June 30, 2006.

Last year, the bureau paid a record $101 million in claims, exceeding the
$100 million plateau for the first time. Last week, however, the bureau had
already surpassed that figure for the current year, putting it on pace to
potentially return more than $150 million by June 2007.

“We are holding more than one-billion dollars’ worth of unclaimed property
accounts for Floridians who have lost track of it,” said CFO Sink, who
oversees the department. “We have made it a top priority to track down
rightful owners and get their property back to them as quickly as possible.”

In January, CFO Sink personally delivered a substantial check to a South
Florida fishing boat captain. The check was from stock accounts, remitted to
the department last August, that the Broward County man and his sister never
knew their grandfather had bought for them years ago.

Unclaimed property can be claimed for free at any time by the rightful
owners or heirs by logging on to www.fltreasurehunt.org or by calling the
Bureau at 1-88-VALUABLE. Until claimed, the unclaimed funds are transferred
to the state’s School Trust Fund to benefit public schools. Since the
program’s inception in 1961, more than $1.5 billion has been transferred to
the fund.